Flying Lotus Speaks On New Captain Murphy Material

We haven’t heard much from Captain Murphy since he revealed himself to be the one and only Flying Lotus. But worry not, because all your burning questions (most of them at least) have been answered in the first FlyLo interview regarding his cultish, mind-controlling rapper alter ego. XXL sat down with Steven Ellison AKA FlyLo to discuss the motivation behind the whole Captain Murphy project, revealing his identity and his upcoming CM work. Check some of this thoughts below and hit the link at the bottom to jump to XXL for the full FlyLo exclusive.

After meeting with Odd Future and finding out that it only took around 15 minutes to record some of the tracks:

“I was convinced at that moment. I was like, I could do that. No dissing. Not to take anything away from anybody and their process or whatever. But when he told me it only took 15 minutes, I got to get my shit together. I gotta eat, dude. Just for some expression sake. I’ve been doing this work for so long without a voice. I feel like I have so much more to say now. I feel like I’ve seen so much shit since I was a kid. I’ve had a lot of experiences—negative and positive. I felt like I needed another outlet. I needed to say some shit and also I wanted to do something that didn’t have any pressures or stigma.”

On keeping his identity a secret:

“I never wanted it to be this whole thing about my identity. I never wanted it that to be the case. The only think that I wanted out of it, I just didn’t want people to like try and hype it up. All of sudden, Flying Lotus is a rapper now. I felt like I had to pay my dues in that respect. I wanted to know if I was any good on the strength.

I wanted people to take me seriously. Not like, “Oh, that’s cool. He’s rapping now. That’s cute.” No, I didn’t want to do that. I want to see if it’s any good first without any co-signs. I want to see if motherfuckers are really gravitating towards it. If it is then I am gonna keep doing it. If not, then I will know.”

Regarding new Captain Murphy material:

“I’m four tracks in. It’s cool. It’s a lot deeper though. This one is kind of like more introspective I feel. It’s a lot darker in the tone of it too. It’s a little less playful. But who knows? It’s only four songs. I’m not in any rush to finish it. But I love doing it. I am having so much fun doing this new character thing.”